


I am Invincible

by RobberBaroness



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: “There are several things you have done wrong,” Morgan said to the heap of bloody and severed limbs lying on the ground.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	I am Invincible

**Author's Note:**

> For Rae, for Arthurian Secret Santa!

“There are several things you have done wrong,” Morgan said to the heap of bloody and severed limbs lying on the ground. “I do not consider myself a harsh mistress, but in the face of absolute failure, something must be said.”

“He was a coward!” snarled the head of the Black Knight. “That so-called king fled in terror for fear that I would rip his throat out with my teeth!”

“Firstly,” Morgan went on, “you failed in the primary order I gave you of humiliating my brother. A loss in battle is unfortunate, but an accepted risk of knight-errantry. By refusing to accept an appropriate time to retreat, rather than making Arthur look like a fool for soliciting random knights to his cause, you looked like a fool and won only his pity and contempt.”

“Pity? Contempt? Ha!” The Black Knight rattled around in what remained of his armor, occasionally producing squishing sounds where his bleeding wounds met with cold metal. “I am invincible, and that mincing pretender knew it!”

Morgan took a breath before her next words. It would do no good to lose her temper now, before she had made her point. Better to get to the end of the statement before she allowed herself to start shouting.

“Secondly,” she said in a deliberately even tone, “you failed to learn a lesson from your predecessor. The Green Knight was successful in testing my nephew’s valor and shaming all those knights who did not meet his challenge because the sight of a headless man picking up his head and walking away with it is, objectively, quite frightening. It would have been far less intimidating if he had allowed every limb except for his head to be severed, unable to walk away from the place where he stood and certainly unable to wield an axe in future challenges!”

“The axe is a peasant’s weapon!” said the Black Knight, utterly missing her point. “A tool for chopping trees! I am a true born knight, and fight with the weapon of my trade!”

“I don’t bloody well care what weapon you use!” Morgan was losing her temper despite herself. How else was she to react to the foolishness of knighthood? “You made a fool of yourself, and you damn well know it! How is Arthur supposed to ever be frightened again by a champion of Morgan le Fay, Queen of Gore, when the last one ended the battle as a spitting sack of flour?”

The Black Knight sneered- or at least, he made a sound that Morgan suspected was accompanied by a sneer, as it was now impossible for him to remove his own helmet and reveal his facial expression. She had been sneered at by enough men in her life to recognize the signs, even from beneath a full visor. Perhaps she should congratulate the Black Knight for making his point clear, but she was not in the mood to award any points for clarity or effort.

“I am no one’s champion!” he said. “I fight in my own name!”

“Well, that’s a relief.” Morgan looked at him coolly. “That means I don’t have to expend resources to put you back together.”

The Black Knight abruptly stopped rattling and squishing around in his armor, though there was a sputtering sound that indicated he was trying to come up with a cutting retort. If that was the case, he failed utterly, and what had once been a heated argument now drifted into an awkward silence.

“Are you ready to speak more respectfully?” Morgan asked him. There was no answer, but from the Black Knight, she was prepared to take silence as a yes. “Good. Now, I can leave you here to bleed eternally without dying, in shame and agony, or I can have you taken back to my castle, stitched together, and sent off with a lesson about hubris. Which shall it be?”

In Morgan’s experience, the trouble with knights was that they were so good at one thing, they assumed that meant they must be good at everything. Witches like herself harbored no such illusions, but were able to more accurately assess their own powers. True, Lancelot would defeat her if they ever met in combat with swords (though why they would do that she had no idea), but if it came to curing deadly wounds, or even killing over long distances, she would have him beat every time. As a result of their misplaced confidence, knights often had trouble accepting help when they needed it.

Grappling with this issue, the Black Knight finally muttered something that sounded like acquiescence.

“What was that?” Morgan asked. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite hear you.”

The Black Knight reluctantly raised his voice.

“I said, I will allow you and your maidens to tend to my battle wounds, that I may be ready for a new fight by tomorrow.”

Morgan wasn’t at all sure about that, but she would accept it as an answer. There was a part of her that admired the Black Knight’s tenacity, and she had to admit that he usually triumphed when up against lesser opponents than the High King of the Britons, armed with the magical sword Excalibur. Still, she was quite glad she hadn’t sent him to pull off her Christmas prank. Rather than teaching her favorite nephew to accept his imperfections and yet be proud of what he strove for, he would have painted the entire Green Chapel red with his own gore and left Gawain to learn nothing except that magical knights were a lot less dangerous than he’d imagined.

“Alright,” she said. “As tempted as I am to abandon you to your own failure, I will have you transported and healed. But consider yourself demoted. You’ll do well enough as a guard, but further harassment of my brother is straight out. Perhaps you can harass Sir Robin, if you’re feeling especially daring.”

For all her berating of the Black Knight, Morgan knew this ridiculous situation was partly her own fault. If she had really wanted Arthur dead, she would have arranged it via curse or poison. It was her ridiculous game of wanting him utterly bested without being totally destroyed that led to situations like recruiting unkillable knights to block his way. If she just left her brother alone, it was entirely possible that he would simply die on the grail quest of his own accord and end the whole game.

And so, as she called for her maidens to care for the Black Knight, she allowed herself to accept a certain similarity. Neither she nor the knight knew when to give up.


End file.
